"You said the girl and the woman were safely out of sight of the men," said Hinch, opening the driver's-side door of the black BMW and swinging his legs out. "This is a mess." The drone of the Bell helicopter that had landed on the cleared ground beyond the fence a hundred feet behind the car was louder now, and hot, dusty air blew away the car's air-conditioned chill.
The driver's-side door slammed and Hinch was gone before Charlotte could answer. Through his eyes as he ran forward she saw three of Rascasse's men scramble up from the shadowed slope to the sunlit street pavement, carrying a flexing canvas bundle that would be the little girl.
Daphne was wrapped up, but Charlotte knew what she looked like.
The men with the bundle, squinting in the rotor wind, hurried up the sloping road past where Charlotte sat in the idling BMW. Through Hinch's eyes she had glimpsed herself in the passenger seat, and then he had run on past; now she saw the open gate on the far side of the road's crest, and the open door in the helicopter's bright blue fuselage, and a man inside waving. The tail rotor was a silvery blur, and the helicopter was bobbing on its landing-gear dampers.
When the men had tumbled Daphne into the cabin of the helicopter and slid the door shut, Hinch turned back toward Charlotte — and so she could see, beyond the front of the car, a man come clambering up the slope and then stand shielding his eyes from the glare and the rotor wind. He was holding a handgun and he was the thirty-five-year-old Frank Marrity, and Hindi's view was suddenly jolting as the back end of the black BMW increased in apparent size.
When I consider how my light is spent—
Blindly Charlotte lifted her feet and slid them under the steering wheel; her right foot hit the gas pedal, and the engine roared for a moment, then she had slid over into the driver's seat and by touch pulled the gearshift lever from park down into drive.
Through Hinch's fast-approaching perspective from the rear, she could see that the car was aimed at the slope beyond the road, and she pulled the wheel to the right and was glad to see that she would miss the edge. Hinch saw Marrity step in front of the car, so she hit the brake. She banged her head against the closed driver's-side window, then impatiently opened the door and yelled, "Get in if you want to save your daughter!"
Through Marrity's eyes now, she saw the BMW's headlights and bumper, and her own face leaning out above the slant of the opened door, and Hinch sprinting up from behind.
"Last chance!" she yelled.
She heard the drone of the helicopter increase in pitch, and knew it must be taking off.
Marrity saw the helicopter tilt and lift from the clear patch beyond the fence at the crest of the narrow road, and he guessed that Daphne was in it. A man was running toward the BMW in front of him, clearly meaning to stop the driver; and now an orange compact car nosed around the bend at the top of the road, probably allied with these people.
Last chance! the woman had yelled.
All he sensed from Daphne was fright and constriction and blackness.
Marrity threw himself forward across the pavement and pulled open the passenger-side door — he tumbled in and yanked the door closed just as the man caught up with the car and opened the right-rear door.
The woman behind the wheel stepped on the gas and the car shot forward; the sudden headwind blew the back door closed.
Marrity looked back, and then was jolted forward against the dashboard as the right fender grated against a parked car.
"Look ahead!" the woman screamed.
Marrity turned and blinked out through the windshield at the green Porsche they had sideswiped, and at the clear blacktop lane stretching away on the left, and she straightened the wheel and stepped on the gas again. He could still hardly get breath into his lungs, and his abraded hands stung.
"Look at the road, don't look away," she said, a little more calmly. "I can't see except through you."
Marrity ached to look back and try to see which way the helicopter went. "Can you," he gasped, "follow that helicopter? Is my daughter — on it?"
"Yes, she's on it. I know where they're going. Keep watching the road or we're dead."
"You're… Libra Nosamalo." Marrity stared wide-eyed at the curving asphalt lane ahead of them. He thought about groping for the seat belt, then tensely decided it might momentarily interfere with his view.
"Charlotte Sinclair," she said. "The other name was to be cute. Tilt the rear view mirror so you can see behind us through it."
"Okay, but — slow down a second." Without looking away from the rushing road, Marrity felt for the rearview mirror with trembling fingers and then bent it around to a likely-feeling position. He darted a glance at it, bent it some more, and then glanced at it again. Back at the crest of the hill he could see the man who had tried to get into the car sprinting back now toward the orange car.
"The orange car—" he said.
"I see everything you see," Charlotte Sinclair said. "They'll try to catch us."
He managed to take a deep breath. "Where's the helicopter going?" The gun was jabbing painfully against his lower ribs.
"Palm Springs. Eyes front, dammit!" She wrenched the car back onto the road, but not before it had run up onto the shoulder and snapped off a post with a birdhouse mailbox on it. "Here's a curve, up ahead," she said, though in fact she speeded up. "Rearview."
Marrity flicked a look up at the mirror; the orange car was behind them now, only a hundred feet back and gaining fast.
"Thanks," she said. "Hang on."
The road curved to the left around a steep, rocky outcrop, and as soon as the BMW was around the bend, Charlotte stomped on the brake; the car came to a shuddering halt almost instantly, with no screeching of tires. "Look back!" she yelled, and then she clicked the gearshift to reverse and floored the gas pedal.
Marrity pushed himself away from the dashboard and shifted around in the seat just in time to see the pursuing orange car flash into view around the rocky shoulder — and then with an almighty slam the cars smashed into each other and he was nearly pitched into the backseat.
The black trunk lid was buckled and the orange car's hood was folded up so sharply that he couldn't see the windshield. Both cars were stopped, still rocking.
"Front, front!" Charlotte was yelling, so he wrenched himself around to look ahead. She clicked the engine into low and pressed the accelerator, and the car quivered for a second and then pulled free. Metal and plastic clattered on the asphalt.
She clicked it into drive and sped on down the road. Marrity couldn't hear any bad noises from the car. "Antiskid brakes," she said. "Standard on the new BMW Sixes."
For several seconds they drove downhill in a ringing silence. Marrity kept his eyes in a wide, unfocused stare through the windshield and concentrated on getting breath in and out of his lungs.
"Aren't you with these people?" he asked finally, forcing his voice to stay level. "Is Daphne a hostage?"
The BMW was swerving smoothly down the canyon road, flashing in and out of the shadows of overhanging trees.
"Rearview," she said.
Marrity glanced up at the mirror; there were no cars visible behind them. He reminded himself that he didn't have to tell her that.
"I'm not with them anymore," Charlotte said, "I guess. God help me. Probably they wouldn't have given me a new life anyway. I guess I knew that." She exhaled, almost whistling, and Marrity was sure that if he could look at her he would see tears in her eyes. "You have some kind of overlap with your daughter's mind, is that right? A link? You screwed up the smooth snatch back there, though I know they're blaming me."